Using the Halloween Season to Your Filmmaking Advantage

So the Halloween season is upon us, and the superstores have opened their doors.  This is perhaps my favorite holiday of the year, because I love gore, scariness, and of course candy, but it is also the time that I stock up on the prosthetics and fog juice that I use for my random movies throughout the year ahead.  It is the one time of the year that makes it a breeze for horror and action movie film making aficionados to get the stuff they need to make some cool on set special effects.

We are going to look at just a few different items that you can grab while the stores are in town that you might be able to just stock up for, just in case you need it.  Yeah, you can look online and order this stuff off the internet, but its always easier to have it on hand when you need it right?  Not everyone has a buddy that is a special effects makeup artist, and a lot of us don’t have the money to hire one, especially on little to no budget productions.  Having these items in your toolbox will be a nice, handy little addition, and could potentially save your ass down the road.

Fake Blood

This is an absolute must for any kind of horror or action movie, and if you look in the right places you can get gallons of it for about ten bucks.  Whether you are staging wounds, staining clothes, or making some gory fight scenes, you are going to need this stuff eventually.  While you can make your own at home, its pretty handy to have a bit of it on hand for if someone has to get a finger cut off or stabbed by a sword.

Fog Machine

You can find these in the off season, but they are kind of scarce.  Fog machines are great for graveyard scenes, fields at night, alleyways, or creepy night scenes.  Depending on what you are shooting, and if you are contemplating doing it in post, 50 bucks for a fog machine for a few shots might be well worth the money.  You can also stock up on the Fog Juice specific to your fog machine that you have as well, as an extra precaution.

Prosthetics

Now, this is kind of a hit or miss, but if you have some productions that you are planning to produce in the next year or so that involve cuts, wounds, zombie skin, or anything else that is highly prosthetic you will want to grab about some basic latex skin and wound prosthetics.  You should also make sure yo have enough Spirit Gum also to apply all of your attributes to your subjects.  Having the fake blood again, along with this stuff can really make the effect sell.

Props

You might have to be in production or close to shooting for this to be of consideration, but Halloween time is the best time to find realistic looking skeletons at a reasonable price, or spiderwebs for $6 for 400 square feet.  There are things like grungy looking chains, swords with sheaths, Harry Potter style wands, tombstones, old looking books, coffins… you have to remember, not all of these things are used JUST for Halloween.  You see them a lot in movies as well.  Hell, you could be shooting a crime drama, and dig up the remains of a murder victim, find their skeleton, and use the teeth in the skull to identify them by dental records.  The possibilities are endless, just think of the Halloween store as a huge prop store.

So there you have it, this season isn’t just the time to scare little kids and fill your head with cavities, no, no, no…. it’s a time of film making.  If anything, even if you don’t have any mini-movies planned for the future, go out to your local Halloween store, and take a walk around.  Buy $50 worth of props and effects, and base a story around them.  Have some fun… use the store as a source of inspiration.  You will be surprised what you come up with.